Epic claims Google forced OnePlus to break deal in which Fortnite launcher would be preinstalled on OnePlus phones

One million Americans use American Sign Language as their primary means of communication. But as you'd expect, even though ASL is the sixth-most used language in the US, it isn't just any old language like English or Spanish or French. According to Communication Service for the Deaf, 98 percent of Deaf people don't receive education […]

If I was at a drive-in movie in 1979 and this commercial for the snack bar played, I'd have secretly wished it was the actual film we were there to see. (via r/ObscureMedia)

The 'Good Ghost' is an amazing BMW R100 project currently being featured on BikeEXIF. DIRK OEHLERKING HAS a portfolio of incredible builds, but there are two machines that stand out. They are the White Phantom and Black Phantom—two classic BMW boxers, with exquisite hand-formed bodywork and an unusual art deco vibe. Dirk refers to his Phantoms as "two that […]

In Munich, Germany, the Circus Krone, closed due to the pandemic, is trying out a new revenue stream: They're selling jars of lion poop for use in gardens to fertilize and also deter other animals from nibbling. According to UPI, "the circus erected a large sculpture dubbed 'Mr. Poo' outside the business to celebrate the […]

I have gone deep into Leo Moracchioli's Frog Leap Studios youtube channel.

Lydia Cambron brilliantly recreated the final, enigmatic scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey. My god, it's full of droplets. (via Daring Fireball)

Two girls bravely crossed a river on a zipline while sitting on a scooter.

Florida man, or in this case, Florida Sheriff Billy Woods announced a no-mask order to his staff on Tuesday. That's right – the deputies and staff of Marion County are forbidden to wear a mask on duty. If anyone complains, he told his staff to "politely and professionally tell them 'I am not required to […]

After a successful round of funding on Kickstarter, Fluster: The Social Card Game is now ready to help turn a party or game night into the engaging, surprising, and enlightening social affair you always hoped it would be. A deck of 100 cards, Fluster is chock full of unusual, funny, and thought-provoking questions inspired to […]

Apparently a man is duct-taped to a billboard in Hollywood, California, because I received a notification a few minutes ago on my phone that said: "Man Duct Taped to Billboard." Live video: Man Duct Taped to Billboard @CitizenApp 1747 N Cahuenga Blvd 9:12:38 AM PDT

Yesterday Kamala Harris made her first speech since becoming the 2020 vice presidential nominee, and in the blink of an eye came "Prosecute Trump," another delightful anti-Trump video by the progressive group Meidas Touch. Using parts of Harris's speech as the narration, the video presents an "open and shut" case as to why Trump is […]

"We are experiencing a crisis that we evaluate to be even worse than the Great Depression" of 1929, Thibaut Le Mailloux of the Champagne Committee, told AP. French wine producers in the Champagne region estimate they've lost $2 billion in reduced sales so far this year. To manage the loss the Champagne Committee plants to […]

'We're doing incredibly well' with coronavirus, lied Trump

This seal played with its meal while waddling in the Maribyrnong River in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia on August 10.“This isn’t the first time a seal has made an appearance in Melbourne’s rivers, but it’s certainly the first time I’ve seen a seal in this river, which I have been frequenting daily for the past two years,” local woman Alicia Pavlis who filmed footage of the event, wrote in a blog post.“The cute critter splashed around and smacked it’s catch against the water’s surface over and over again,” she said.VIDEO: Alicia Pavlis via Storyful Read the rest

A baby boy born on an airplane that was taking mom to a hospital in Anchorage was named 'Sky' by mom.Chrystal Hicks was 35 weeks pregnant when she gave birth to Sky Airon Hicks on August 5 around 1 AM after mom boarded a plane to take her from the small community of Glennallen, Alaska to an Anchorage hospital, KTUU-TV reported.“It was shocking, it was really weird at first, I didn’t know what to think,” Hicks told a reporter. “But everybody kept talking about the baby on the plane.”Hicks and her son made it safely to the hospital. Sky was placed on a breathing machine when he arrived because he was born a month premature. The baby is expected to be discharged from the hospital next week.Hicks said filing out the birth certificate information was difficult because they were about 18,000 feet (5,500 meters) in the air.“I just put Anchorage,” Hicks said. “I didn’t want to put on a plane or in the sky.”Hicks has three other children — ages 3, 9 and 11.Read more at KTUU-TV. Read the rest

Jade Dodd of Tennessee renewed her license online, and when she received it last week, was surprised to discover that the photo wasn’t her, but rather an image of an empty chair.“The lady at the DMV did not really believe me when I was like ‘hey, I need my license fixed,’” Dodd told local news WKRN. “Then, she looked it up in the system and goes, ‘oh, I need my manager for this.’”Here's what authorities say happened: “When the customer visited the Driver Services Center a few years ago, during the transaction, an examiner made an error by capturing and saving the wrong photo (of an empty chair) to the customer’s profile. When the customer recently renewed her driver license online, she received an image of a chair because that was the last picture taken on file. When the Department was made aware of her situation, we immediately made things right with the customer and provided her with a license with her actual photo and have addressed this situation internally.” —- Wes Moster, Tennessee Department of Safety & Homeland Security. More at WKRN. Read the rest

Biden: The choice we make this November will decide the future of America for a very long time.

It's been six years since comic legend Robin Williams died. Robin's Wish is a new documentary that looks at his final days and the degenerative disease (Lewy Body Dementia) that is attributed to him ending his own life on August 11, 2014.An intimate portrait of Robin Williams and his invulnerable spirit, Robin's Wish is the story of what really happened to one of the greatest entertainers of all time - and what his mind was fighting.screengrab via Robin's Wish/YouTube(The Awesomer) Read the rest

The LA Prop Store is holding an auction of real Hollywood memorabilia at the end of the month:An incredible 870 lots of rare props, costumes and production material from over 350 titles will be going up for auction, with bidding available online, by phone or in absentee.If you have lots and lots of disposable income and would like to spend, say, $30,000 on an OG bust of Admiral Ackbar, this could be your chance! You'll also found some original props from Army of Darkness, Alien and Aliens (the original Xenomorph Queen puppet is expected to go for $50-70K), Ghostbusters, A New Hope, Back To The Future, plus a really, really depressing (and even more depressingly affordable) Michelangelo costume from Ninja Turtles III in case your childhood wasn't traumatizing enough.Can you use my HSA to pay for this, and use it as a healthcare write-off on my taxes to help cure my PTSD from childhood? pic.twitter.com/V9oqooMJd6— Listen to the Roland High Life on Spotify (@thomdunn) August 12, 2020The eyes of Jabba the Hutt are also available for the low, low price of $2,500, which seems fairly low for a body part once belonging to a notorious intergalactic mob boss. I imagine there are some parents who'd be willing to spend $8K on that full-size velociraptor cage from Jurassic Park though.You can view the whole 250-page auction brochure online. If you're the kind of person who can afford any of this ridiculous memorabilia, and you're feeling particularly generous with your money, please hit me up for a list of completely unnecessary things that I would happily display in my home. Read the rest

I don't fully understand how the Steamed Hams Meme began, but this is delightful, so I'll take it. Read the rest

Satanic Puppeteer Orchestra is what happens when a band is fronted by a robot, named SPO-20, and is backed by a mad scientist (ie. a human). San Diego-based Professor B. Miller is that mad scientist and he is giving Happy Mutants the opportunity to view the music video for band's latest single first. "Sea Anemones (aka Shark Wigs)" is the title and this is what he shared with me about it:It's awfully weird... on the surface it's about sharks wearing another creature as a wig that underneath is really a criticism of our culture's obsession with image and beauty and how it's marketed. Definitely not for everyone.(Professor, this is Boing Boing. You must know that we were born for the "awfully weird.")Something cool to note: Because he couldn't film a traditional music video due of the pandemic, the good Professor designed what are essentially a series of screen-printed concert posters. He took the separated color layers and animated them independently which produced that trippy effect you saw in the video.Also, to coincide with Shark Week, the band is releasing its nautical-themed album, "Lost at Sea," this Friday, August 14th (pre-order now). Look at how the 12" EP is laser-etched! John K. Peck (McSweeney's) provides the liner notes (Dr. Demento has in the past). View this post on Instagram Laser-etched vinyl! Looks even cooler in person. Pre-order “Lost at Sea” now... vinyl is limited to just 42 copies and then it’s gone. Read the rest

The North American Museum of Jewish History's been selling its Yo Semite tee shirts for about a decade. After Trump pronounced "Yosemite" thusly last week, however, sales went through the roof—or through the sequioa canopy, if you prefer. "When we first started tracking sales last week, we had sold enough shirts in the first 30 hours to equal almost our entire July sales," August said. "And now, less than a week later, our total shirt sales have exceeded the prior three months of sales combined."Created by artist Sarah Lefton, the shirt was inspired by her day job at a Jewish summer camp near Yosemite National Park, according to the museum's website.Above the words "Yo Semite" are two trees that resemble sequoia trees. Three groves in Yosemite National Park are home to giant ancient sequoias trees, with the oldest being 3,266 years old, according to the National Parks Service website.A rare viral-news victory for high-quality inventory over print-on-demand. Read the rest

Facebook is banning the pro-Trump Republican PAC “The Committee to Defend the President” from advertising, after the PAC repeatedly posted content identified as false by third-party fact-checkers.“As a result of the Committee to Defend the President’s repeated sharing of content determined by third-party fact-checkers to be false, they will not be permitted to advertise for a period of time on our platform,” said Facebook spokesman Andy Stone Thursday.From Reuters:The company declined to specify the length of the advertising ban or which posts prompted it.Politicians’ ads and posts are not subject to Facebook fact-checking, a policy that has drawn heat from lawmakers, but content from political groups like PACs can be fact-checked.The committee’s Facebook page, which has almost 1 million “likes,” has had four “false” or “partly false” fact-checking labels attached to content since the start of July. More at Reuters:Facebook bars pro-Trump PAC from advertising, citing repeated false posts Read the rest

Donald Trump on Thursday issued an executive order that bans doing business with ByteDance, the China-based company that owns TikTok. The ban takes effect in 45 days. From Reuters:The app may be used for disinformation campaigns that benefit the Chinese Communist Party and the United States “must take aggressive action against the owners of TikTok to protect our national security,” Trump said in the order. More at Reuters. Read the rest

Twitter will label the accounts of state-controlled media entities, as well as their senior staff and government officials, said the company in a blog post Thursday. There are no U.S. media outlets on the list.From the Twitter blog post:Twitter provides an unmatched way to connect with, and directly speak to public officials and representatives. This direct line of communication with leaders and officials has helped to democratize political discourse and increase transparency and accountability. We also took steps to protect that discourse because we believe political reach should be earned not bought. In 2019, we banned all state-backed media advertising and political advertising from Twitter. Today we’re expanding the types of political accounts we label. We will add new labels to the following categories of Twitter accounts: • Accounts of key government officials, including foreign ministers, institutional entities, ambassadors, official spokespeople, and key diplomatic leaders. At this time, our focus is on senior officials and entities who are the official voice of the state abroad • Accounts belonging to state-affiliated media entities, their editors-in-chief, and/or their senior staff Russia was not happy about the move.Tweeted Russia’s deputy U.N. Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy, “They think they can set the rules of the game! This is an illusion. Such clear double standards backfire and undermine credibility of Western media, with ‘state-affiliate’ labels or without. People can’t find truth and facts there anymore.” From Reuters:The accounts of Russia’s Sputnik, RT, and China’s Xinhua News are among the media organizations that will be labeled, according to a Twitter spokesman. Read the rest

Part of the reason WordPress is the undisputed king of website creation is its open-source framework, allowing anyone to create plugins offering levels of functionality to WordPress sites that were unprecedented. So where do you find all the great ideas that are pushing WordPress forward? You can sample a heaping spoonful of that innovation with The Mega 2020 WordPress Plugin Bundle.This package collects five volumes containing more than 80 different plugins categorized for use doing almost anything you’d want a website to accomplish. Once you start picking through this bundle’s content, you’ll quickly find a dozen different ways to optimize and elevate your WordPress site.The needs of commerce and marketers drive the contents of two volumes in this collection, allowing site creators to include sticky navigation bars, opt-in popups, integration with email services like Mailchimp as well as social communication like WhatsApp and Skype, Facebook list builders, and more.Meanwhile, another selection of plugins focuses in on social media and audience engagement features. Plugins like Social Boost bring the same social sharing features that drive clicks on sites like Buzzfeed and UpWorthy to your posts, while others like FB GFX Pro, Mobile Plugin, and Uber Optin can help you create professional-level Facebook fan pages, lead-generating pages, streamlined mobile integration and beyond.In addition to other plugs that can help you increase social conversions, build social credibility, showcase YouTube videos with cool sliders, and even build video aggregators and 3-D landing pages, you’ll also find plugins dedicated to upping your site’s performance metrics. Read the rest

In a speech today ahead of his rally in Ohio, Trump noted that production has been shifted to Thigh Land.Previously: Watch President Trump attempt to say "Yosemite" Read the rest

The Washington Post interviewed Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla about a Covid-19 vaccine that could be ready this year:In a Washington Post Live interview, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, DVM, PhD said the company could seek regulatory approval for their coronavirus vaccine as soon as October. Bourla said patients’ progress would be tracked for over two years. According to Bourla, the company could have approximately 100 million doses this year, which Americans would receive from the government for free. Pfizer’s contract with the United States government is priced at $19.50 per dose.In response to President Trump saying a vaccine could be ready as early as November, Bourla said Pfizer could begin seeking regulatory approval for their coronavirus vaccine as soon as October, allowing for potential distribution in November. Bourla said Pfizer would have “approximately 100 million doses” manufactured this year globally and “a big chunk of that will come to the U.S.”Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla says his company could begin seeking regulatory approval for their #coronavirus vaccine as soon as October, and they would have 100 million doses manufactured this year. https://t.co/hOumc3xZgC pic.twitter.com/uYgnJNjBJA— Washington Post Live (@postlive) August 6, 2020“If the product works, we have already started manufacturing so that we will have available quantities that would be readily available…We expect, given how fast the regulatory agencies all over the world are reviewing those applications, that we’ll do it very quickly.”Bourla said as part of Pfizer’s contract with the U.S. government, Americans will receive the first doses of the vaccine allotted to the United States for free: “We took that into consideration, that’s why we provided [the U.S. Read the rest

Ode to Desolation is Lindsey Hagen's thoughtful and intimate short documentary on Jim Henterly, an illustrator who mans of one the 60 remaining US fire lookout posts, down from 9,000 at the start of the 20th century.Like lighthouses, fire lookout posts are being replaced with satellite-based technologies.In a lovely interview, Lindsey talks about how hard it was to get her subject to agree to be in the film, explaining why it was so important to convince him to agree:The story of Jim Henterly and his role at Desolation Peak came to me from a photographer, Kellen Mohr. I was intrigued to know more about the man on the mountain with the eye and lexicon made to appreciate, indulge, and share the beauty of the natural world. I gave Jim a call and he made it well known that he had no interest in being the subject of a film. That inspired me even further. Here was a man with a heart of gold and the purest intentions in preserving our wild places. Just as Jim sought to keep our wild untainted, he too was untainted in a way. I wanted to share part of what it means to exist today ‘untainted.’ In doing so, we tribute this film to the effects of wilderness on the human soul and psyche. Jim’s way of observing and engaging with the world around him inspires me immensely.Image: Vimeo / Chris Naum Read the rest

I've been accused of being partial to Kewpie Mayonnaise because of its retro packaging, but that's only somewhat true. It's the best mayo I've ever had. Chalk it up to extra egg yolks and the MSG. It's made in Japan, but you can buy a 3-pack on Amazon. If you are making okonomiyaki (crepes with noodles, cabbage, pork, egg, etc.), it's essential.I also 3D printed a stand so that the bottle can be stored upside down. Read the rest

For the last few years, artist Mitch O'Connell (not Mitch McConnell) has been erecting billboards depicting Trump as one of the aliens in the classic science fiction movie They Live. Whenever he post an announcement to Facebook, angry people weigh in with their opinion, which Mitch happily uses to promote his projects. I laugh every time I read them.View this post on Instagram Only $250 away from another They Live billboard (see the 10th pic)! Contribute at https://gf.me/u/ymbyf6 And for your reading pleasure, here are some fan letters from lovers of the very first billboard, way back in 2016... #trumpbillboard #theylive #gofundme #obey #vote #election2020A post shared by Mitch O'Connell (@mitchoconnellart) on Aug 6, 2020 at 5:09am PDT View this post on Instagram As we fundraiser for another They Live billboard (see last image), let’s revisit the thoughts and prayers of previous billboard fans. These are the folks you’re going to thrill with every new billboard we put up, so contribute today! :-) #trump #theylive #trumpbillboard #gofundme #obey #2020election #voteA post shared by Mitch O'Connell (@mitchoconnellart) on Aug 5, 2020 at 9:43am PDT Read the rest

Ohio governor Mike DeWine tested positive for coronavirus today, the latest high-profile politician to catch the bug. He has no symptoms, reports NBC News. DeWine ordered a statewide mask mandate two days ago, including in schools, as Covid surged in the state. "As part of the standard protocol to greet President Trump on the tarmac in Cleveland, I took a COVID test," DeWine wrote on the popular microblogging website Twitter. "I tested positive. I have no symptoms at this time. I’m following protocol and will quarantine at home for the next 14 days."Early in the pandemic, DeWine was quick to reverse his early attempt to get Ohioans to mask up.“It's really been made clear to me that a mandatory mask requirement for people who are shopping, going into a retail business, is offensive to some of our fellow Ohioans,” DeWine said in April. “I’ve also heard, for some people, this is a difficult thing to do.” Read the rest

QAnon is like an alternate reality game (ARG), says ARG designer Adrian Hon. Charlie Warzel of The New York Times interviewed Hon about the parallels between a conspiracy theory and alternate reality games. Hon had a number of interesting insights about QAnon:"It’s a collaborative fiction built on wild speculation that hardens into reality.""Many people feel alienated and left behind by the world. There’s something about QAnon like ARGs that reward and involve people for being who they are. They create a community that lets people show off their “research” skills and those people become incredibly valuable to the community.""A lot of it is about a lack of trust. But also a lack of comfort with ambiguity. In reality, the answer to most hard questions is, ‘It’s complicated.’ But people want definitive answers. Many of these theories provide that feeling for people. When really everyone needs to be a bit more comfortable with ambiguity.""What concerns me is that right now it is quite easy for bad actors to see what has worked with QAnon and try to copy it. There’s a playbook now. Any groups can hijack it. It wouldn’t take a lot to try and replicate it.""You can make projects and build community that harnesses that positively. The same way bad actors can look at QAnon and find a playbook, so can good actors. We can find similar ways to motivate alienated people in a more constructive way. At least I hope so." Read the rest

Seventy five years ago today, the United States detonated an atomic bomb over Hiroshima, Japan, killing an estimated 140,000 people. A year later, John Hersey, a pioneer of "new journalism," visited the city to report an incredible feature for the New Yorker about the experiences of six people who survived the blast. The US had attempted to cover up the true devastation but Hersey expressed it so the world could know. (It was such a groundbreaking undertaking and achievement that there's a new book, Fallout by Lesley M. M. Blume, to tell the story behind Hersey's story.) From Hersey's "Hiroshima" (1946), available in full at The New Yorker:he former head of the Nobori-cho Neighborhood Association, to which the Catholic priests belonged, was an energetic man named Yoshida. He had boasted, when he was in charge of the district air-raid defenses, that fire might eat away all of Hiroshima but it would never come to Nobori-cho. The bomb blew down his house, and a joist pinned him by the legs, in full view of the Jesuit mission house across the way and of the people hurrying along the street. In their confusion as they hurried past, Mrs. Nakamura, with her children, and Father Kleinsorge, with Mr. Fukai on his back, hardly saw him; he was just part of the general blur of misery through which they moved. His cries for help brought no response from them; there were so many people shouting for help that they could not hear him separately. Read the rest

Interface designer Hector Simpson designed this set of colorful wallpapers for Macs and iOS devices. He calls it Wavēy. Read the rest

After four people died and three lost some or all of their vision from drinking hand sanitizer containing methanol, the CDC issued a warning. Despite the ruminations of the President of the United States of America, disinfectants are not for internal use: "While hand sanitizers with possible methanol contamination are more life-threatening than those that are not contaminated, FDA urges consumers not to drink any of these products."Methanol is so toxic that adulterated hand sanitizers should not even be disposed of down a drain. Via the US Food and Drug Administration:The agency is aware of adults and children ingesting hand sanitizer products contaminated with methanol that has led to recent adverse events including blindness, hospitalizations and death.Methanol is not an acceptable ingredient for hand sanitizers and must not be used due to its toxic effects. FDA’s investigation of methanol in certain hand sanitizers is ongoing. The agency will provide additional information as it becomes available.Consumers who have been exposed to hand sanitizer containing methanol and are experiencing symptoms should seek immediate treatment for potential reversal of toxic effects of methanol poisoning. Substantial methanol exposure can result in nausea, vomiting, headache, blurred vision, permanent blindness, seizures, coma, permanent damage to the nervous system or death. Although all persons using these products on their hands are at risk for methanol poisoning, young children who accidently ingest these products and adolescents and adults who drink these products as an alcohol (ethanol) substitute, are most at risk.Photo by Anna Shvets from Pexels Read the rest

At an online press conference this morning, New York Attorney General Letitia James announced legal action to dissolve the National Rifle Association, which she said has defrauded tens of millions of dollars from its donors, corruptly enriched leaders including longtime president Wayne LaPierre, and is riven by fraud and "brazen illegality.""The four defendants failed to fulfill their fiduciary duty to the NRA and used millions upon millions from NRA reserves for personal use," James said, listing "trips for them and their families to the Bahamas and safaris in Africa, private jets, expensive meals and other private travel."The NRA was founded in 1871 in New York and is a registered nonprofit in that state.Asked why she is seeking to dissolve the organization rather than charge individual offials, James said that the misconduct was such that "they've destroyed the assets of the corporation" and that it effectively served no purpose other than to support the abuses."Donors donate to the NRA beacuse they believe in its mission, James said in response to a reporter's question about gun rights advocates' right to organize. "Four individual members have looted its assets." She nonetheless confirmed that her office was moving forward only with civil, not criminal enforcement, against LaPierre and the other officials named.#BREAKING: I filed a lawsuit to dissolve the National Rifle Association for years of self-dealing and illegal conduct.The @NRA is fraught with fraud and abuse.No organization is above the law.— NY AG James (@NewYorkStateAG) August 6, 2020 Read the rest

Several years ago, scientists using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope captured an image of an infant galaxy as it appeared 13.4 billion years ago. How did they achieve this head-spinning look so far back in time? The light they measured to create the photo was emitted by the galaxy, named GN-z11, just 400 million years after the universe began and has taken this long to reach Hubble in orbit around Earth. Video explanation above.“It’s amazing that a galaxy so massive existed only 200 million to 300 million years after the very first stars started to form. It takes really fast growth, producing stars at a huge rate, to have formed a galaxy that is a billion solar masses so soon,” explained investigator Garth Illingworth of the University of California, Santa Cruz, at the time of the 2016 discovery. More from NASA in this video: Read the rest

In 1980, Robin Williams and Shelley Duvall starred in Popeye, director Robert Altman's live action musical comedy about the great sailor. Trailer below. The film is set in the fictional town of Sweethaven which was actually a wonderfully elaborate set built near the village of Mellieħa on the Mediterranean island of Malta. Forty years later, Sweethaven still stands and has become a popular tourist attraction. The Popeye Village even hosts weddings, birthday parties, school tours, and corporate team building experiences. Make sure you eat your spinach. (via r/TIL) Read the rest

Police officers lie in arrest reports, court testimony and internal investigations. The lie to suspects, to victims, to judges and to one another. They lie pervasively in the course of their work, a volume of deception enabled by prosecutors, police unions, departmental policies and the lack of government oversight. When they are caught, discipline is so unlikely or mild that nothing changes. When they are sued, the taxpayer foots the bill, not the department. So what, asks Mark Joseph Stern, can be done about it?What would happen if a city really tried to eliminate testilying? I posed this question to Bennett Capers, a former federal prosecutor and Fordham Law professor who studies police lies. “In all honesty, I think my initial reaction would be that the system cannot exist without it,” he told me. “It would grind to a halt.” Capers said that “run of the mill policing would have to change. We are doing about 13 million misdemeanor arrests a year. With a lot of those small crimes, there’s fudging. Nobody’s paying attention.”Police, in other words, would have to stop arresting so many people for minor crimes. Once cities stopped deploying officers to harass misdemeanants, they could shrink their police force, reducing the number of encounters between cops and civilians. Stern's article is a must-read, but the tl;dr is sadly obvious: there is not much that can be done about it that is also politically likely.Consider Dan Hodges' famous remark about Sandy Hook and gun control:In retrospect Sandy Hook marked the end of the US gun control debate. Read the rest

Originating in the 15th century, kintsugi is the Japanese art/craft of repairing cracks in pottery by obviously filling in the breaks with lacquer and gold or other precious metals to celebrate the imperfections. Artist Victor Solomon, whose "Literally Balling" series is about basketball and opulence, applied kintsugi to a deteriorating basketball court in southern Los Angeles.“With the heartbreaking beginning to 2020 and this weekend’s return of basketball – I’ve been thinking about the parallels between sport as a uniting platform to inspire healing and my ongoing experiments with the technique of Kintsugi that embellishes an objects repair with gold to celebrate it’s healing as formative part of the journey,” Solomon told Hypebeast. Read the rest

At Nick Cave's "The Red Hand Files," the musician/poet/screenwriter responded to a fan who asked, "What do you do when the lyrics just aren't coming?" In short, Cave's answer is to wait patiently. But his full reply is quite beautiful and inspiring. From The Red Hand Files:The idea of lyrics ‘not coming’ is basically a category error. What we are talking about is not a period of ‘not coming’ but a period of ‘not arriving’. The lyrics are always coming. They are always pending. They are always on their way toward us. But often they must journey a great distance and over vast stretches of time to get there. They advance through the rugged terrains of lived experience, battling to arrive at the end of our pen. In time, they emerge, leaping free of the unknown — from memory or, more thrillingly, from the predictive part of our minds that exists on the far side of the lived moment. It has been a long and arduous journey, and our waiting much anguished[...]Our task is to remain patient and vigilant and to not lose heart — for we are the destination. Read the rest

There are many nondescript and mundane tools for data recovery, but the Spider Board is not one of them. It lives up to its name, with 25 leglike needles that, carefully placed on copper traces on a denuded card, suck the data out of them like fly juice.PC-3000 Flash Spider Board Adapter is a universal solution for safe monolith recovery without tedious soldering! Using it you don’t need specific adapters to each monolith you deal with.It is designed for connection to internal contacts of NAND-based Flash drives manufactured as single-package chips (monoliths). The adapter consists of 25 universal contacts that support software configuration of their association with NAND interface signals in a corresponding task. Please note, that the adapter is supported by PC-3000 Flash Reader 4.0 only."Sufficiently advanced data recovery is indistinguishable from dark cybernetric ritual," writes @esquiring. Read the rest

It's "happy happy joy joy" for fans of The Ren & Stimpy Show. Twenty-five years after ending its run, the popular adult animation is returning to TV. New episodes of the show are headed to Comedy Central.Consequence of Sound:The ViacomCBS-owned network is hiring a new creative team for a “reimagined take” on the legendary Nickelodeon animated series, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The New York Post adds that Billy West, the voice of Stimpy — and of Ren (for three seasons) — is expected to return for the revival, along with several of the original writers. However, the show’s original creator John Kricfalusi, who was accused of sexual misconduct in 2018, will not be involved in the project.(COS)image via COS/Nickelodeon Read the rest

Sampla is a sustainable footwear startup from Ireland, and in their current Kickstarter campaign, they're offering a new pair of animal-friendly shoes made from … apples?!Rethinking the classic tennis shoe, the upper material of our shoe is made from a vegan material called AppleSkin™. It is made using repurposed apple waste from the juice industry in Italy. The other components of the shoe were carefully selected. Organic and recycled materials were consciously chosen where possible. Nice, simple and sustainable.Partnering with Trees on the Land, we will plant an indigenous tree in Ireland for each pair produced. To keep carbon emissions as low as possible, our logistics partner sends our shoes using the most optimal route for each delivery. They are neatly packed and sent in our 0% plastic packaging.And a little more detail about the actual process behind the AppleSkin™:The apple core, pips and skins are dried and milled to a fine apple powder. Then it’s applied to a tear-resistant woven roll with cotton fabric. These rolls are heated and given an added protective layer to produce a weather-resistant durable fabric. Organic pigments are added to the brown fabric, producing colours of choice. We are left with a material that is breathable, durable, and of course, 100% vegan.The Kickstarter Campaign has an "Early Bird Special" that'll run you about $100 fora pair of apple shoes and a t-shirt (plus the carbon offset tree planting). This is apparently about 40% less than what would ultimately be the retail price. Read the rest

渋谷でゲームあるある再現してみた pic.twitter.com/dk5KH6kUgM— がんそ【駒沢アイソレーション】 (@KaoruGans0) August 5, 2020In this video, @KaoruGans0 walks around Shibuya like a character from a video game: stilted and repetetive pacing; sliding oddly along walls; and interacting robotically with landmarks, conspiciously obvious items and other people. Read the rest

"The eyeballs move!" -- Michelle Bates, co-creator of the van maskThis is the week my daughter and I had expected to be vacationing on Vashon, a lovely island in the southern Puget Sound where a dear friend of mine resides. Our plans were, of course, thwarted by the pandemic. Now, my friend has been assuring me that nothing fun is happening there this summer, that everything is closed and that we won't be "missing anything." But then I saw a post on the VashonBePrepared Facebook page that triggered my FOMO. It shows a minivan that has been anthropomorphized with eyes and an oversized mask. Quirky large-scale art with a message is definitely my thing!I had to know the story. So I tracked down one of its creators, Michelle Bates. She told me that her partner Stefan Freelan had originally masked the van for a friend's graduation parade. Together they updated it, and later drove it through an island-wide Fourth of July parade representing the Vashon Emergency Operations Center.Michelle shared that the masked van was inspired by another unusual piece of art. This past Memorial Day, artist Mik Kuhlman welcomed visitors to Vashon from the back of a pickup in a giant red coat. Vashon-Maury Island Beachcomber:The purpose behind the performances was to greet Memorial Day visitors to Vashon at the moment they disembarked from ferries and traveled through town, urging them to wear masks and consider the fate of an island community with limited healthcare resources. Read the rest

Creem: America's Only Rock 'N' Roll Magazine looks at the freewheeling Detroit-based publication that was as gonzo as the artists they covered. As Craig S. Karpel observes, "There was no parallel for it in the rest of rock journalism. It was not a magazine that was about rock n' roll. Rock n' roll was taking place at the magazine."Developed under the working title Boy Howdy (their mascot's catchphrase), this fabulous doc is one of many that should be having a triumphant festival circuit, but the pandemic had other plans. Via the trailer:Capturing the messy upheaval of the '70s just as rock was re-inventing itself, the film explores CREEM Magazine's humble beginnings in post-riot Detroit, follows its upward trajectory from underground paper to national powerhouse, then bears witness to its imminent demise following the tragic and untimely deaths of its visionary publisher, Barry Kramer, and its most famous alum and genius clown prince, Lester Bangs, a year later. Fifty years after publishing its first issue, "America's Only Rock 'n' Roll Magazine" remains a seditious spirit in music and culture.Image: YouTube / Greenwich Entertainment Read the rest

I just learned about the Texas Triffid Ranch, which bills itself as "Dallas's Pretty Much Only Carnivorous Plant Gallery." The ranch is celebrating its 5th anniversary this August, although any events are on hold due to both social distancing guidelines, and what the owners describe as, "various reasons, mostly involving a day job and possible legal liability."In other words, the Ranch's growing area isn't typically open to the public at all, even under better circumstances. But they do have a travelling collection for display at local garden shows and other events; if you're interested in buying anything, you can also set up an appointment. They have a list of carnivorous plant enclosures on their website, although they are careful to note:The Triffid Ranch doesn’t actually sell triffids. We also don’t offer Audrey IIs, vargas, Krynoids, Vervoids, Delvians, Vegetons, Whomping Willows, or Slaver sunflowers. More’s the pity.Ah well.For what it's worth, the Dallas Observer named them the "Best Little Shop of Horrors" in 2017.The Texas Triffid Ranch: Dallas's Pretty Much Only Carnivorous Plant GalleryImage: Public Domain Read the rest